


A Lovely Dinner Ends Badly

by TheUltracheese



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 01:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUltracheese/pseuds/TheUltracheese
Summary: “Ah, they’ll leave us alone. For a bit.”Aziraphale’s heart sank as he remembered Crowley’s words. He looked down at the letter that had just manifested in his bookshop, squarely on top of the plasticky personal computer he used to do his accounting.The angel usually enjoyed proving the demon wrong. This would not be one of those times.***In this fluffy little bit of tosh featuring mild angst and ending with a silly adventure, Aziraphale gets some bad news from Heaven. Yesterday’s lunch at The Ritz had been so wonderful that he invites Crowley out to dinner there for one last perfect evening before he knows everything will fall apart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as one tiny snippet - just the first chapter, actually. Now it is growing into a wee little story. I don't know what's happening. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Ps: I had an alternative, much darker ending in mind at first, but I can’t bear to hurt these two sweet Ineffable Floofs. Raise your hand if you would also like to see the angsty alternative ending - it can be a sort of choose-your-own-adventure fic, lol. (tbh, I’m amazed anyone is reading anything I’ve written at all! Thnx 💚)

“And _I_ said, ‘my good sir, I do hate to disappoint you, but there is nothing particularly special about your finger. That is to say, nothing beyond its natural wonder as an element of the human frame made in the image of God Herself.’ Well, he did not like that at all, let me tell you. He as good as -“

Aziraphale stopped abruptly. The demon Crowley had shifted his lank frame forward and gently placed a hand on his to get his attention.

“Angel, don’t you think we ought to let these people get back to doing whatever it is they do outside the Ritz?”

Aziraphale blinked. His eyes quickly scanned the restaurant - they were the last two diners, and the few remaining waitstaff seemed to have a vaguely trance-link appearance. Rather than reach for his pocket watch, the angel flicked his eyes to the thin wrist belonging to the hand holding his, where a severe watchface read 3am.

“My word! How did it get to be so late? These poor people - surely they wanted to go home hours ago?!”

Crowley shrugged. “Not sure which one of us was responsible for that little miracle, actually.”

Aziraphale yanked his hand back, turning bright red.

“Ah, relax; we deserve it after all that happened this week.”

“Still...” Aziraphale grimaced.

“I’ll leave a handsome tip and make sure they all get home safely and dream about ‘whatever they like best,’ alright?”

Aziraphale felt a smile creep across his face. That last bit was a rather nice touch.

“Crowley -“

“If you start telling me I’m nice, I’ll wring your feathered neck.” The demon gestured to a member of the waitstaff to bring over the bill.

“No, no; it’s just that. Well. Your hand. It’s so dreadfully cold.”

“I’m a snake, angel. Reptiles are cold-blooded, after all.”

“Obviously, yes. But we’re inside, not on some bench out in Saint James Park, and your hands are still positively ice-cold!”

“Why do you think we demons like hellfire so much?” Crowley interrupted himself to stand and greet the server, who had brought the bill and Aziraphale’s coat. In one smooth gesture, the demon had laced an arm around the coat and leaned forward to hand the server a stack of bills, whispering brief instructions at such close proximity that his lips just grazed the young man’s ear. The server wandered off, looking thoroughly flushed. Crowley ignored Aziraphale’s small “hmph,” held out his coat to him, and continued his thought from earlier.

“Standing in a good, roasty-toasty column of flame is about the only time a demon like me gets to feel anything approaching ‘warm.’”

Aziraphale’s eyes narrowed as he rose and reached out to take back his favorite coat. “At least someone enjoyed my bookshop burning down, then.”

As soon as he said it, his insides went leaden with guilt. The demon locked eyes with him and refused to release the coat, using it to pin Aziraphale in place. When Crowley spoke, his voice was thick with anger and hurt.

“I thought you were dead.”

Aziraphale felt his heart beating fast in his ears. “Oh, my dear boy, I’m so sorry, I just -“

“I thought they took you from me. I kept imagining that complete wanker Gabriel tearing out your wings -“

“Crowley, I -“

“How many times, angel,” rasped Crowley, “how many times did I ask you to run away with me?”

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably under the demon’s gaze. “Twice,” he whispered.

“And you turned me down, twice.” Crowley stepped back. “I’ve already waited until the very end of the world for you. But I won’t keep waiting forever.“ He pressed Aziraphale’s coat into his chest and turned, striding toward the exit.

“Crowley, please!” Aziraphale called out. The demon did not turn back, but he did stop. “Don’t go.” The angel fiddled uncomfortably with his hands. “You’re my friend. My best friend. I... I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Crowley turned back, yellow eyes inscrutable. “My problem, angel, is that you don’t know what to do _with_ me.”

Aziraphale inched forward. “What do you want from me, Crowley? I’ve saved the world with you, even gone to hell for you...“

“What do I - you’re kidding, right?! I’ve told you what I wanted for hundreds of years. Run away with me. Stay at my place.” He paused, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed. “Do I have to spell it out for you? Let me love you, Aziraphale. Or if not, leave me to love where I can.”

Aziraphale blanched, mortified. “I’m sorry, my dear.” He struggled to speak around a stubborn lump in his throat. “What I said... it was unforgivable. It was petty jealousy.”

“I know that; you think I don’t know what jealously looks like? I’m a demon, for satan’s sake. But what are you jealous of, Aziraphale? If you want me, angel, come and take me. But I won’t put up with your snippy little stage whispers anymore. I’ve made my feelings perfectly clear.”


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley was leaning in, eyebrows arched high above his sunglasses.

“And we were having such a nice dinner...” Aziraphale was trying to smile and speak casually, but a crack in his voice betrayed him. The angel reached a trembling hand toward his vest, but stopped, squeezing his eyes shut. “Please don’t make me do this right now, my dear.”

When the angel had opened his eyes, he was alone. For a brief moment, Aziraphale thought of running after Crowley, but what could he say differently? Besides, he was certain the demon was already racing down the streets in his Bentley at 90 miles per hour. Aziraphale put on his coat, smoothing it over his vest with shaking hands, and headed out into the drizzly London night.

The angel muttered small plans to himself on the long walk home. “A hot cup of cocoa. Yes. That’s what I need. And. I can enter the new Richmal Crompton books into the card catalogue. And. I suppose I’m behind on October’s balance sheet.” The steady monologue of banal to-do’s sustained Aziraphale all the way to the front door of his shop, which he opened calmly enough, and gingerly shut behind him, whereupon he sank to the floor and sobbed.

It was 11am on a Tuesday. Technically, it was later the same day, but Aziraphale felt that the warmth and camaraderie of the dinner he and Crowley had just shared might as well have been millennia ago. Angel’s don’t need sleep, but Aziraphale had indulged in a few hours’ worth following what he delicately referred to as “a good cry.” He then woke with a heavy sense of certainty in the pit of his stomach.

He needed to tell Crowley.

Aziraphale dressed slowly. When he came to the bow tie, he lay trembling hands to it, remembering what he had once read in a book. Over, under. Fold. Over. Wiggle-fold?... He peered into a mirror and tried again several times. In the end, he managed only an over-large knot with two drooping bows of unequal length. “I look like some kind of… beatnik,” he lamented. The angel tried one more time, whispered “Sod this” to himself, and miracled the bow tie neatly into place. He then patted down his torso, feeling the crinkly presence of a letter in the inside pocket of his vest.

With a sigh, Aziraphale headed to a Soho address he knew well, but had never actually visited before. On the way, he stopped in a plant nursery and selected a magnificent orchid. The white flower shot up out of two thick, green-black leaves that curled upward, as if they were reaching out to hold the orchid. It smelled of vanilla and blood oranges. Or maybe, thought Aziraphale with a pang, just vanilla. The citrus was probably just him thinking of Crowley.

Aziraphale took the elevator all the way to the seventh floor. The penthouse was reachable only via a final flight of stairs - typical, thought the angel, puffing his way up the gaudy marble steps.

On the top floor, there were two apartment doors facing one another on opposite sides of the hall. No names. Aziraphale made an educated guess and rapped at the door that featured no welcome mat or door knocker.

He waited in silence. Maybe the orchid was a bad idea. The demon spoke often of his plants but had never mentioned flowers specifically. He used words like “verdant” and “lush,” never “beautiful” or “blooming.”

Aziraphale’s reverie was broken by the sound of an indistinct voice he did not recognize from the other side of the door. He prepared to apologize and try the next flat when the door snapped open to the full length of a chain lock. Crowley’s face appeared in the gap.

The door closed and for one heart-pounding second, Aziraphale wasn’t sure if it was going to open again.

But it did, this time without the chain. Crowley was standing there holding the doorknob in one hand and a towel wrapped around his slim waist in the other. He spoke through an exasperated sigh.

“What you want, angel.”

Aziraphale tore his eyes upward, noting that the demon looked exhausted, his skin blotchy and red.

“Have I come at a… bad time?” asked the angel.

Before the demon could say anything, a voice called from within the flat: “It’s getting a bit crowded in here, want me to - ”

“It’s fine, I’m coming,” Crowley called over his shoulder. He turned back to the door. “Yeah, not a great time.”

Cold slithered down Aziraphale’s chest. “So sorry. I’ll - call to schedule a meeting, then.” He swallowed down a hard knot in his throat. “Righty-o.” The door shut. Aziraphale carefully left the plant where a welcome mat would have been and all but ran back to his bookshop.


	3. Chapter 3

The thought of leaving a message on Crowley’s ansaphone to “schedule a meeting” was too miserable to be borne; instead, Aziraphale had taken to visiting St. James Park every afternoon on the off chance he might run into the demon. The ducks were getting fatter, but Aziraphale was no less alone.

Two weeks passed. Then, one Tuesday afternoon, the angel was sitting on the usual park bench, staring mutely out at the water when a familiar hand appeared at his side.

“Vanilla with a flake?”

Aziraphale radiated with delight. He looked up at Crowley; the demon’s face was unusually inscrutable. Aziraphale accepted the ice cream with a nervous smile.

“Ah, Crowley… I hope you received my gift?”

“Didn’t realize you’d left it,” drawled Crowley. “I haven’t left my flat for awhile; only just found it this morning. It sort of withered in the hall.”

Aziraphale’s heart fell. “Ah,” he replied, willing his voice to remain neutral. “Well, you were entertaining.”

Similar to the human wink is the English verb that can take either the transitive or intransitive form. Both angel and demon felt certain they had understood one another, but neither had. Aziraphale thought Crowley had had a guest over for a few nights of passion; Crowley thought Aziraphale found the sight of him in a towel, fresh from a hot self-pity shower and what he definitely did not refer to as “a good cry,” to be amusing. Both, however, were of the same mind on one point: the other was being a jerk.

The demon cocked his head sideways at Aziraphale’s comment but did not reply. Instead, he reached out and gently pulled at a drooping tail of Aziraphale’s bow tie.

“You’re really letting yourself go, angel.”

“Yes. Quite. Well.” Aziraphale cringed. “That’s what I needed to talk to you about.”

“Your bow tie.” The demon’s voice was utterly deadpan.

“Well, more broadly, it relates - ”

“I bear what passes for a demon’s soul to you and you want to talk to me about your sartorial struggles?”

“Please,” cried Aziraphale, waving his hands to stop the demon. “If we’ve ever been friends these last six millennia, just… give me one minute. Oh, bother.” The last comment related to the toppling of his ice cream off the cone and into the grass, caused by an energetic gesture meant to emphasize “one minute.”

Crowley bit his bottom lip and sank back into the bench, slouching low. Aziraphale sighed and reached into his vest pocket.

“Read this,” he said, handing over a thin, eggshell-white envelope. The angel then busied himself with breaking off bits of his empty cone to feed to some very keen ducks. He could not bear to watch Crowley read the letter.

The demon slid a thin finger under the flap of the envelope and removed a sheet of exquisite paper, gold embossed filigree worked into an ornate letterhead showing through from the opposite side. He read in silence.

Aziraphale had already read the letter several hundred times. He knew it by heart now. It read:

**Dear Principality Aziraphale,**

**In light of recent events, your employment with the Heavenly Office is terminated effective immediately.**

**You will receive one weeks’ severance miracles upon receipt of this letter.**

**You are expected to return all company property, including your security swipe card and corporeal form, immediately. Failure to return the latter will result in a garnishment of years; the remainder will be commensurate with an average human lifespan for this century. **[here in the margin was a hand-written addition in impossibly elegant penmanship: _“good luck with that, tubs”_] 

**Please let us know if we can assist you during your transition.**

**Regards,**  
**Archangel Michael**  
**Angel Resources**

Aziraphale had been sensing Crowley tense up next to him. He narrowed his eyes to focus on the ducks at his feet.

_“Bastards!”_ Crowley suddenly shouted. There was something savage in his voice. Aziraphale squinted further at the ducks and put a hand on the demon’s shoulder to lever him back down onto the bench.

“You’re in public. And anyway, there’s a verso.”

“To hell with public, I will personally kill every single one of those -” Crowley remained half-standing, as if ready to uncoil and strike at something, but interrupted himself to flip the letter over. On that side was a postscript, written in the same hand as the earlier marginalia:

_“PS: We tried, but that demon of yours can’t be terminated. He’s in what Sandalphon refers to as an “employment donut hole.” We gave him his powers but Hell is his current employer, and they’re so chicken-shit about his rub-a-dub-dub act that they won’t fire him. Since Hell can’t take what they didn’t give and we can’t fire someone who doesn’t work for us, Hell put him on permanent administrative leave with full pay and benefits. Meaning, there’s now an emancipated, fully-powered demon on the loose on Earth. SO THANKS for that extra paperwork, you SLAPNUTS. Worst wishes, Michael.”_

Aziraphale crumbled out the last bits of his empty cone for the ducks and swallowed. “There you have it,” he said, his voice barely shaking. He slowly turned to his friend. The sight caught his breath in his throat. “Oh, dear. Please don’t.”

Crowley’s eyes were full of tears but his jaw took on a sharp angle. When he spoke, his voice was hollow and strangely sibilant. “Liars. They can’t do that. When did you get this?”

Aziraphale smiled weakly. “Two weeks ago. The morning of our dinner at the Ritz. I had rather hoped - we could have one more nice evening together.” Crowley’s eyes widened with painful understanding and Aziprahale quickly looked away. He tried to keep his voice light. He was frightened, but he was not sure by what. “You know, I used to miracle my ties into place. I was never good at doing them up on my own.” He paused to gesture to the limp knot between the uneven tails of the bow. To his horror, when he tried to speak again, his voice would not cooperate. All he could manage was a watery smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

Crowley was on him in a heartbeat. The demon enveloped the angel, a hand on his soft golden curls and another at his back. “I’m so sorry, Aziraphale. I won’t let them -” his voice broke off. Aziraphale wrapped his arms around his friend and patted his back. “Don’t you even think about trying to soothe me, angel,” sobbed Crowley.


	4. Chapter 4

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” replied Aziraphale softly. He allowed them both a few moments to be utterly miserable together. Crowley, thought the angel, was particularly good at being miserable. He could keep it up for centuries at a time.

“Although,” Aziraphale added tentatively, face pressed against the demon’s shoulder, “there is _some_ good news in the letter...”

“Stop,” warned Crowley. He broke away and looked down into the angel’s face, yellow eyes swimming with tears. “Stop right there.”

“But you’re a free agent! Answerable to neither heaven nor hell.” Aziraphale gave a watery smile. “You know, my dear fellow, there’s really nobody I trust more to be guided by his own conscience.” 

Crowley stood very suddenly and turned his back to Aziraphale. The angel barreled on anyway. “You ask so many questions; the right questions, too. And I know you hate when I say this but... you really are a _nice_ person.”

A snort was the only reply.

“Please, Crowley,” prompted the angel gently, “let me be happy for you.”

Crowley turned back, giving Aziraphale a searching look. “What is there to be happy about, angel? Eternity without my best friend. Heaven and hell couldn’t have planned it better.”

Aziraphale twisted his hands in his lap. “I don’t want to die, Crowley. Dying means no more nigiri in soy sauce, no more old book smell. No more Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House. It sounds like a little end of the world for one! But… humans do it all the time. And I’ll have another thirty years or so to get used to the idea. Besides, what use is a wayward ex-angel without any miracles?”

Crowley knelt at Aziraphale’s feet and took the angel’s plump hands into his own. “What use? Six thousand years, angel, and I can’t imagine living a single day without you.”

A smile bloomed on the angel’s face. For a moment, he seemed to glow. Then he looked down at his hands, held in Crowley’s. “Eternity is a long time, you know. A lot can happen.” Aziraphale gave Crowley a meaningful look.

Crowley put a hand on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Can you bear the thought of losing me, angel?”

Aziraphale bit his lower lip. “No. No, I can’t.”

Crowley’s shoulders visibly loosened for the first time since things went downhill at The Ritz. “Then why should I?”

Aziraphale’s eyes filled with tears. “No choice, dear fellow. It’s done. My miracles are already gone. I am, as humans say, living on borrowed time.”

Crowley stood. “You forget. Thwarting heaven is our particular specialty.” He glanced down at his watch. “My place. Alcohol, planning. Now.”


End file.
